night he "got the rheumatiz," which has clung to him ever since. The men subsequently got clear off, goods and all.
THE COAST-BLOCKADE.
In or about 1817, the Coast-blockade was instituted, and the officers and men composing that service were stationed round the coast. The character of the men composing the service is given elsewhere, and it is not too much to say that the officers were but little better than the men. Educated in the school of war, it is perhaps not to be wondered at that they exercised a sort of slave-driving over their men, and a sort of cold bloodedness over any poor devil of a smuggler who came under their clutches. However, this part of my subject cannot perhaps be better illustrated than by giving seriatim an account of smuggling transactions, in many of which lives were lost, and all of which might have been prevented had a more enlightened policy been pursued by those in high places, who had the regulation of import duties almost in their own hands.
EXTRACTS FROM THE ANNUAL REGISTER AND FROM MR. W. D. COOPER'S PAPER ON SMUGGLING, IN VOL. X., " SUSSEX ARCHEOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS."
" On the 13th of March, 1821 , a fisherman of Hastings, Joseph Swaine, was shot in the forenoon on the beach, by George England, a Coast-blockademan. Swaine's boat had come in, and it was the custom of -
